[title subtitle=”words and image: Jessica Soward”][/title]
The first year I hosted Thanksgiving,I was twenty-two. I was a new mother, caught between the stage of youth and responsibility that often left me feeling like a child playing house. My childhood holiday memories were of a huge extended family: full of cousins, and cobblers, and hour-long games of hide and seek with loved ones I only saw twice a year. They left me deeply engrained with a desire for tradition.
So when adulthood grabbed me, I decided to step into a big-girl apron and serve up my romantic idea of Thanksgiving. I got a little over zealous. In retrospect, I suppose it was a reaction to the passing of my grandmother. She was the kind of matriarch fiction is written about, and it was my first Thanksgiving without her. Naturally, I planned a feast of epic proportions.
Everything was from scratch, a compilation of recipes from my favorite Food Network personalities: Alton and Paula and Tyler. I shopped for days, gathering ingredients from half a dozen stores. I made broth from scratch. I baked bread. I used eight pounds of butter.
The first time my mother hosted Thanksgiving, she cooked the turkey upside down. For all my life I wondered how someone could make such a silly mistake. Then I learned. I spent so much time planning a meal large enough to feed a small army and elaborate enough to impress royalty that I failed to invite the guests. Oh sure, I’d talked to some relatives. And I just assumed that it would become family knowledge: Thanksgiving at my house! Come one, come all! Because, you know, in my twenty-two-year-old mind, that was how holiday planning worked.
In reality, word hadn’t traveled. Most of my imagined guests planned on driving south to celebrate with relatives in Louisiana. And I was left in my kitchen, twenty-four hours before I’d hoped to have the table set with the most fabulous meal of all time, realizing what a rookie mistake I’d made. In that moment, I would have taken an upside down turkey in a heartbeat.
First, there were tears. There may have been a short pity party next to the giant pot full of citrus and crystallized ginger brine. Thankfully, even when I panic, God is still good to me.
I don’t know who birthed the idea originally, but at some point, we started to devise a plan. We had a Thanksgiving with no guests. So we started looking for guests who had no Thanksgiving.
First, my mom invited the installers who laid carpet for her floor-covering business. My cousin, who was bartending at the time, brought a single mother she worked with and her children, along with a kindly, polite man who always sat alone at the bar. My brother and sister both brought friends. We ended up with seventeen in all.
I don’t remember their names and honestly, all these years later, I don’t know that I would recognize them if I saw them on the street. But oh, how I remember that Thanksgiving. My humble, old house was alive that day. It was something to be proud of, with the way it welcomed in that motley crew. The photos on the wall spoke of love and the food on the table spoke of blessing and generosity. I remember how thankful that single mother was to be able to share rich tradition with her children, even if the tradition was not her own. She stood at the back door and watched them play in the yard, and I looked away quickly before she saw me notice her tears. I remember how they all praised the meal and thanked me again and again and again. It wasn’t even about the food though. The impressive splendor of my brined and roasted turkey paled in comparison to what else we served that day, a plate of belonging.
God taught me a lesson in thankfulness that year. I was so amazed that He took what I thought was a ruined plan and He turned it into something beautiful. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. He does specialize in redemption, after all.
Remarriage brought me a husband with eight siblings. Babies have been born and we have settled into a comfortable groove of holidays and happenings. Our family is large enough now that we could easily have a huge celebration all on our own. But it would be lacking. After the shared Thanksgiving, a hodgepodge of dinner guests has become as much of a holiday tradition as pumpkin pie. They have changed us. They’ve changed our way of doing things, molded our expectation for fellowship. They have left fingerprints, whether they realize it or not.
Our proximity to Little Rock Air Force Base has brought many service men and women into our lives. They’ve given up deep roots and guaranteed holiday plans to serve our country. So we open our door. Some of the families we know and love have spent years of Thanksgivings in our home. Their faces reoccur in our photos and in our memories. Their recipes stand proud next to our own and when the orders come for them to move on, our table is bereft without them. As are we.
Then there are strangers and acquaintances. They come with friends, with our siblings and relatives. They answer my Facebook status calling out to anyone who needs a chair and a meal and a place to be included. They are invited from work places and church small groups. These people thrill me. They bring stories we’ve never heard before and casseroles we’ve never tasted. I remember one young man in particular, a friend of a friend and far away from home. He had a fast car and fire for football and politics. He told me I’d made the best dressing he’d ever tasted.
I came upon this way of doing things by chance. I wish I could say it was from the kindness of my heart that I chose to open my home and share our life with all these people. But, really, I was just an over eager cook with a bunch of food and no one to feed. People always thank us, admiring our hospitality. I’m quick to correct them though. While I’m happy to be able to bless others, ultimately, I am sure we are the ones most touched by an open door on Thanksgiving Day.
After cooking for ten hours, I usually fall flat into a chair and take it all in. I see my good friends and sister-in-law serving pie, my husband, with his brothers and best friends catching a football with the kids. I see a person I just met that morning in deep conversation with my little sister. I see my mom and my mother-in-law playing with the baby.
I look around at the smiling faces and it doesn’t matter if the person is blood or friend or stranger. On Thanksgiving at our house, they are all family.
I know all these people will remember fondly the year they spent Thanksgiving with the Sowards’. I know that young man will remember the dressing, and maybe if he’s lucky, he will have carried a kindness from our home that Thursday afternoon. I like to think that maybe one day, when his life has brought him to a place where he has a Thanksgiving to call his own, he will open it gladly and make a spot for someone else at his table.
I’ll bet you have someone in your life with no Thanksgiving. You don’t have to have a fancy house, or lots of room, or extravagant food. All you have to do is open your heart and your door. Invite them in for a plate of belonging. I promise, you will be so thankful that you did.
